As Internet broadband speeds have been increasing and broadband connectivity has become more widespread in the US and worldwide, games are increasingly being distributed via downloads to personal computers (PCs) or consoles. Also, broadband connections are increasingly used for playing multiplayer and massively multiplayer online games.
During game play, large data downloads are performed to provide graphics or behavioral information to the local PC or console. For example, if a user enters a room in a game and encounters a scene or a character made up of graphics data or with behaviors that are not available on the user's local machine, then that scene or character's data is downloaded.
It is in this context that embodiments of the invention arise.